I have found that implementing the sbt by doing the follwing:
<xp:button id="button2">
<xp:this.value>Update my status</xp:this.value>
<xp:eventHandler event="onclick" submit="true"
refreshMode="partial">
<xp:this.action><![CDATA[#{javascript:try {
var svc = new sbt.ConnectionsService("/profiles/atom/mv/theboard/entry/status.do?email=" +userBean.email);
var sb = new java.lang.StringBuilder();
sb.append("<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\"?>");
sb.append("<entry xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom\">");
sb.append("<category scheme=\"http://www.ibm.com/xmlns/prod/sn/type\" term=\"entry\"/>");
sb.append("<category scheme=\"http://www.ibm.com/xmlns/prod/sn/message-type\" term=\"status\"></category>");
sb.append("<content type=\"text\">");
sb.append(getComponent("inputText1").getValue());
sb.append("</content>");
sb.append("</entry>");
var msg = svc.put(null, sb.toString(),"xml");
var msg = "updated users profile status";
@WarningMessage(msg)
} catch(e) {}
}]]></xp:this.action>
</xp:eventHandler>
</xp:button>
The reason it wasn't working correctly is that the atom feed needed to be declared as an entry. This article in the connections doc for 2.5 http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/ltscnnct/v2r0/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.connections.25.help/r_api_prof_update_photo.html explains the required parts of the xml atom document.