Steemit Time Guide (Using Your Time Wisely)
While on Steemit, you might find yourself staring at the Trending Page or the New Page, but you could be using your time on Steemit more productively. Assuming you spend at least 30 minutes on Steemit at a time, here is how to best use your time. First, check out the New Page, and go 15 minutes deep and then look for the best posts from between 15 and 30 minutes ago. Then either start writing your own content, or go to the Trending Page. On the Trending Page do not Vote, but add some comments and maybe Vote for some newer comments. Then go to the Hot, Active & Popular Pages. Add comments here. Then go to the New Page again and check everything 15-30 minutes deep, and Vote for the best content.
And Repeat.
The STEEM White Paper
https://steemit.com/steemit/@marsresident/the-steem-white-paper
Cryptocurrency and Taxes
Voting and Witnesses on Steemit
https://steemit.com/steem/@marsresident/vote-for-steem
Economics 101
https://steemit.com/money/@marsresident/474mst-economics-101
How You Can Help Get STEEM in the News Using Just Your Email
How DogeCoin Overtook Other Currencies
https://steemit.com/steem/@marsresident/how-dogecoin-overtook-other-cryptocurrencies
STEEM’s USD Value will Climb Throughout the Year
https://steemit.com/steem/@marsresident/steem-s-usd-value-will-climb-throughout-the-year
How STEEM Can Become the #1 CryptoCurrency
https://steemit.com/steem/@marsresident/how-steem-can-become-the-1-cryptocurrency
Github Archive for For STEEM App Developers
https://steemit.com/steem/@marsresident/github-cryptocurrency-app-creation-archive
Steemit's First $30,000 Post
https://steemit.com/steemit/@marsresident/steemit-s-first-usd30-000-post
After 30 minutes, is the amount of Steem earned from upvoting something that becomes popular drastically reduced?
It's not that the rewards are reduced by time, but rather how many other people have voted for it. The first upvote gets significantly more rewards than the 100th upvote. However, in order to avoid people just upvoting everything the minute it comes out the devs introduced a "reverse auction" structure for the first 30 minutes after a post is live.
What this means is that voting on something right when it is posted actually forfeits roughly 99% of the rewards your vote would earn to the poster. After 15 minutes you only forfeit 50% of your reward. After 30 minutes, you keep 100% of the reward for yourself. The forfeited percent updates constantly as time goes on, so you forfeit varying percents for every minute in those initial 30.
I haven't read anything officially stating that, for example it's not in the White Paper, but a lot of people have been saying that. It might also just be that after 30 minutes if something has not been upvoted, it probably isn't going anywhere. But I have voted on some things that are like 30-45 minutes old that had like $50 or $100 and have gotten ok rewards for it later.