Before the #newsteem became a trend and everything changed when it came to upvoting, bid-bots, and curation awards, it was set to be an ideal time for upvoting after 15-minutes. Of course, this depended on who had voted before you and so on, but ideally, 15-minutes was the thing.
Has this changed now completely after the new fork and with #newsteem? It seems to me as if people place their upvotes much earlier without worrying so much about the curation awards. Is that because you still get the curation award based on the people voting after you, as long as you vote before them? So, it doesn't matter if I vote after 2 minutes or 5 minutes, I will still get the max reward for curating the content and then be rewarded if it becomes a hit and receives many more upvotes later?
Can someone just clear this up to me and help me out?