This will differ from service to service. I did this recently and found a blog post about how to do this for Skype, but don't know for the others.
Code belongs to annar2r, I didn't make any of it:
<?php
function get_skype_status($username, $image = false, $icon = false ){
//creating url
//if you need small icon
if($image && $icon)
{
/***************************************
Possible types of images:
* balloon - Balloon style
* bigclassic - Big Classic Style
* smallclassic - Small Classic Style
* smallicon - Small Icon (transparent background)
* mediumicon - Medium Icon
* dropdown-white - Dropdown White Background
* dropdown-trans - Dropdown Transparent Background
****************************************/
return "http://mystatus.skype.com/smallicon/".$username;
}
//if you need image
else if($image)
{
return "http://mystatus.skype.com/".$username;
}
//or just text
else
{
/***************************************
Possible status values:
NUM TEXT DESCRIPTION
* 0 UNKNOWN Not opted in or no data available.
* 1 OFFLINE The user is Offline
* 2 ONLINE The user is Online
* 3 AWAY The user is Away
* 4 NOT AVAILABLE The user is Not Available
* 5 DO NOT DISTURB The user is Do Not Disturb (DND)
* 6 INVISIBLE The user is Invisible or appears Offline
* 7 SKYPE ME The user is in Skype Me mode
****************************************/
$url = "http://mystatus.skype.com/".$username.".xml";
//getting contents
$curl = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
$data = curl_exec($curl);
curl_close($curl);
$pattern = '/xml:lang="en">(.*)</';
preg_match($pattern,$data, $match);
return $match[1];
}
}
//getting skype status icon
$ico = get_skype_status("ar2rsawseen", true, true);
echo "<p>Skype icon:</p>";
echo "<p><img src='".$ico."'/></p>";
//getting skype status image
$image = get_skype_status("ar2rsawseen", true);
echo "<p>Skype image:</p>";
echo "<p><img src='".$image."'/></p>";
//getting skype status text
$status = get_skype_status("ar2rsawseen");
echo "<p>Skype status:</p>";
echo "<p>".$status."</p>";
?>