The First.One.Through blog hit some milestones in 2018.
It crossed the 500,000 word-count and 600 article thresholds, for one thing. By way of reference, there are only a handful of books ever written that crossed half a million words such as War and Peace and Les Miserables. Not bad in 4.5 years of writing.
| Year | Articles | Words | Average |
| 2014 | 107 | 62,534 | 584 |
| 2015 | 144 | 143,239 | 995 |
| 2016 | 132 | 117,961 | 894 |
| 2017 | 106 | 104,462 | 985 |
| 2018 | 117 | 102,591 | 877 |
| TOTAL | 606 | 530,787 | 876 |
The articles continue to be picked up and re-posted by various news outlets and bloggers around the world. Some have translated the articles into different languages. Some of these include:
The articles are also often cited in individuals’ commentaries on different sites.
| Blog | Language | Website |
| Connecting Singles | English | https://www.connectingsingles.com/blog_96020_1/who_owns_jerusalem.htm |
| The Educator’s Classroom | English | https://theeducatorsroom.com/teaching-liberal-job-america/ |
| True Cost Blog | English | https://truecostblog.com/2009/08/09/countries-with-universal-healthcare-by-date/ |
| VG Debate | Norwegian | https://vgd.no/samfunn/midtoesten/tema/1850040/tittel/boikott-eurovision-i-israel/side/19 |
These sites and links have been important sources of readers, but Facebook continues to be the most important, accounting for 44% of traffic. Search engines and Twitter accounted for 12% and 1%, respectively.
The articles that gathered the most interest in 2018 were about Ari Fuld, an American-Israeli who was killed in cold blood by a Palestinian Arab. Other articles that were popular were about the United Nations and CNN, which both negatively portrayed Israel throughout the year.
Interestingly, one of the most viewed articles of 2018 was written in 2015, called “Recognition of Acquiring Disputed Land in a Defensive War.” It was one of the most popular articles of 2017 as well and ranks as the sixth most read-article (at least linked to) on the First.One.through site.
There was no dramatic shift in terms of the countries viewing the articles from last year, with the exception of Japan and Hong Kong jumping significantly. In response, there may be more articles written in 2019 about Asia as it relates to Judaism and Israel.
| Country | 2018 | 2017 |
| United States | 59.4% | 58.5% |
| Israel | 8.5% | 7.9% |
| Canada | 6.9% | 7.4% |
| United Kingdom | 4.3% | 4.5% |
| Australia | 3.4% | 3.4% |
| South Africa | 3.0% | 2.9% |
| Netherlands | 2.1% | 1.8% |
| Japan | 1.0% | 0.2% |
| Germany | 0.8% | 0.9% |
| Sweden | 0.8% | 0.7% |
| Hong Kong | 0.8% | 0.1% |
| India | 0.6% | 1.0% |
| Norway | 0.6% | 0.8% |
The FirstOneThrough YouTube page has slowed down since August 2018. While no new videos have been posted in six years, until August 2018, there was still an average of over an hour a day of video watched on the channel. Since August, viewing time is down by half.
The most popular videos of 2018 were:
- Aliyah to Israel (Music by The Maccabeats)
- Remembering the 1972 Israeli Olympic Athletes (Evanescence)
- Jordan’s Hypocrisy: Queen Rania on Palestinians and UNRWA
- Judea and Samaria (Foo Fighters)
- The Anthem of Israel is JERUSALEM
“The Hamas Theme Song (Music by CSNY)” was removed by YouTube for violating community standards. Curiously, many of the sources for that video (translated by sites like MEMRI and Palestinian Media Watch) which showed Hamas teaching Palestinian schoolchildren to murder Jews remain on YouTube.
Please share and comment on all of the original material.
Wishing you a wonderful 2019.
First One Through 