Rupert Murdoch today laid out his vision for The Wall Street Journal, the newspaper he effectively acquired when News Corp bought Dow Jones for $5.6 billion (£2.8 billion) two and a half months ago.

Mr Murdoch said that he wanted to "improve the paper in every way", including by bolstering its international coverage and broadening from its traditional focus on finance into areas such as the arts, culture, and fashion.

He said that he had "lots of plans and lots of ideas" for the paper, which he acquired after four months of negotation with the Bancroft family, the controlling shareholders in Dow Jones.

In a broad-ranging interview at an internet conference in San Francisco, Mr Murdoch said that he wanted News Corp to have "a bigger presence" on the internet, but declined to specify what he might buy next, saying that companies were "too expensive".

He said that he that hoped MySpace, the social networking site which News Corp bought for $580 million two years ago, would have revenues of $750 million this year, which was "at least 30 times what they were was the day we bought it."

"If we can keep that trajectory going, we'll be very happy," he said.

Asked what he thought MySpace was worth given reported valuations of Facebook - which has less than half as many visitors a month as MySpace - at $15 billion, he said: "$50 billion? I don't mind." He added - to laughter and applause - that what the high valuations of internet companies showed was that NewsCorp - which is worth just over $70 billion - was "totally underpriced".

Mr Murdoch said that he thought Facebook, which has seen rapid growth in the past twelve months to more than 52 million visitors, was "pretty cool", but added that it was different to MySpace, which "in spite of all the hype" was growing faster.

Times Recommends

• Lies and cover-up at MG Rover exposed by report
• High oil prices push manufacturing costs up
• Primark founder steps down as chief executive