Yesterday the NBA issued a memo banning players, coaches, and other team personnel from using Twitter and other social networking sites from 45 minutes before, during (including halftime), and and after games until all responsibilities (ie. post game interviews) are finished.  Some might get a good laugh out of the news, but what does this mean for the public's favorite status updater?  Is it a sign of the times or a bad omen for a company that's still struggling to monetize it's traffic? The NBA isn't the first to issue Twitter-regulations; the NFL actually put a similar regulation into place months before as the football season kicked off.  The NBA itself has over one million people following it's players and personnel through Twitter. The fact that such large, public organizations feel it's necessary to enforce such regulations is a testament to the staggering success of the site.  The Twitter-phenomena has become an veritable addiction, fast out-pacing its predecessors of Facebook or MySpace.  The reason?  Ease of use, dynamic updates, authentic celebrity involvement, and multiple outlets of use.  Individuals can update their Twitter and receive realtime information from other accounts from their computer, laptops, or phones.  Other websites have integrated Twitter into their interface--tweets are simultaneously updated and displayed on your other social networking sites.  It's no longer necessary to even sign into Twitter.com in order to tweet. With the popularity of the site reaching fever pitch, especially among celebrity athletes and their fans, companies like the NBA and NFL have issued regulations on Twitter use, at times even laying fines on players for relaying private information over the internet.  The rate of growth of Twitter appeared to have no limit, but the recent bans that are being exercised by a growing number of organizations seems to indicate a glass ceiling that developers and users may not have previously foreseen.  This could be offset by the businesses that have unabashedly incorporated Twitter into their advertising scheme, but the question still remains: if Twitter is being banned in this arena, what's next? Some speculate that Twitter is only a fad that will fade as quickly as its meteoric rise, believing the public will eventually tire of its admittedly useless stream of consciousness.  After all, will the news that someone is going to the supermarket or what they're snacking on going to still be exciting a year from now?  Perhaps by then, a new social networking site even more compelling and salient than Twitter or Facebook combined will have overtaken the public interest.  But with companies like the NBA setting more and more Twitter regulations, maybe developers should be less concerned with boredom and more alarmed by an increasing number of limitations set by organizations who don't appreciate the constant and many times unfiltered flow of information.