Careful with this one. The response to this one is fairly obvious. A program that rips CD's to WMA? It's called Media Player. After updating to MP9 (desire to have everything up-to-date is still too hard to resist, even though I rarely use it; and, yes, I realize I'm using Windows XP), upon my first use it asked if I wanted to convert all of my MP3's to WMA. The first time I put in a CD, it asked if I wanted to always have Media Player rip the CD to WMA files automatically. (Both of which I declined.) Because these are default settings, the average click-yes/ok-to-everything-user is bound to start having a collection of WMA files (or at least those who actually purchase CD's and don't just download all their music). Because MP3's were around first, people recognize what they are. If given a choice by a program (Rip to MP3 or WMA or even OGG for that matter), they recognize MP3 and will select it, which is why it's still the defacto standard. WMA is starting to dent that, though. If my memory is correct, it helps that you can't rip to MP3 directly. If you want MP3's, it links you to a site with plug-ins for purchase that can handle the MP3 format. As you might guess, most people aren't looking to pay for the software to listen to their encoded music.
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Careful with this one. The response to this one is fairly obvious. A program that rips CD's to WMA? It's called Media Player. After updating to MP9 (desire to have everything up-to-date is still too hard to resist, even though I rarely use it; and, yes, I realize I'm using Windows XP), upon my first use it asked if I wanted to convert all of my MP3's to WMA. The first time I put in a CD, it asked if I wanted to always have Media Player rip the CD to WMA files automatically. (Both of which I declined.) Because these are default settings, the average click-yes/ok-to-everything-user is bound to start having a collection of WMA files (or at least those who actually purchase CD's and don't just download all their music). Because MP3's were around first, people recognize what they are. If given a choice by a program (Rip to MP3 or WMA or even OGG for that matter), they recognize MP3 and will select it, which is why it's still the defacto standard. WMA is starting to dent that, though. If my memory is correct, it helps that you can't rip to MP3 directly. If you want MP3's, it links you to a site with plug-ins for purchase that can handle the MP3 format. As you might guess, most people aren't looking to pay for the software to listen to their encoded music.