I personally have no use for this anymore. If I am browsing a webpage and I want the link to open in a new tab I will do it myself, otherwise I expect it to open in the same tab.
How do others feel about this?
It seems like a convention that exists for sites that want to force the user into their content even when they want to leave. Unless it is a file download link - I find it incredibly rude.
They must have, right?
Based on my experience it's very much less than half of normal people know how to do this.
Just skimmed the abstract, which says "We find that users switch tabs at least 57.4% of the time." but looking at Table 1, it seems like 64% of people do not open search results in new tabs/windows at all, so your initial guess is about correct.
It's actually quite annoying that middle click doesn't bring up the link.
Source? That's almost entirely untrue in my own experience (my audiences are quite large, quite varied, and not particularly ludite).
For example, clicking on a help link (while filling out a screen) or anything else that would disrupt what the user's doing unintentionally.
Personally I tend to use it for links like "follow us on twitter" because I'm hoping that they will keep both tabs open. However the comments here are making me wonder if that's too forceful.
The only place I've used it in months is on Facebook iFrame applications where otherwise avoiding it would cause a larger page to load in a smaller area and get cut off.
As another poster mentioned, it would be good to mark as opening in a new window with an icon or text. When it's a small bit of information (like a couple paragraphs of help text), I always appreciate a modal window or tooltip first.
Which would be the "target" attribute's intended purpose, frames that is.