It's been a while since I've done anything useful with Net::AIM, but I remember that it needs to handle some config events before any messages can be sent. I also noticed that AIM will not send messages if the connection is closed too soon (thus the sleep).

This code below does the job. DEBUG is on to show some useful information, but I'd also suggest adding some print statements to gain an even better understanding of how Net::AIM functions.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use Net::AIM;

sub DEBUG() { 1 }

my $aim = new Net::AIM;
$aim->debug(1) if (DEBUG);  # provides helpful information
$aim->newconn( Screenname => 'my_name', Password => 'my_password' ) or
+ die "Can't connect to AIM server.\n";
my $conn = $aim->getconn();
$conn->set_handler('config', \&on_config);

$aim->set('config_done', 0);
my $done = 0;
while (! $done) {
  $aim->do_one_loop();
  if ($aim->get('config_done')) {
    $aim->send_im('my_buddy', 'my_message');
    sleep 5;
    $done = 1;
  } else {
    $aim->do_one_loop();
  }
}

sub on_config {
   my ($self, $evt, $from, $to) = @_;
   my $str = shift @{$evt->args()};
   $self->set_config_str($str, 1);
   $self->send_config();
   $self->set('config_done', 1);
}
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