In the interview, conducted in Union Square Ventures' office, in the Flatiron district of New York, Wilson also characterized Murdoch's strategy for the Journal's website as "a mistake" based on "short-term thinking."

"Anything that is news or opinion needs to be free on the Web," Wilson said, "because the Web is this very fluid medium that is very much driven by links and the flow of visitors through a discussion. If you're going to make people pay to see your opinion piece or your news piece, that kind of activity is not going to happen.

"People say, 'The Wall Street Journal has such a profitable business on the Web,'" Wilson added. "That's fine, but they could have such a better business on the Web if they embraced the way the medium is really designed to be used. And they're not doing that, so it's a mistake."

Wilson speculated that Murdoch ran the numbers and concluded: "We would have to cause our audience to grow 10 times, and we would have to sell ads at this price to replace all this revenue."

"But that's short-term thinking," Wilson said. "They could have been able to increase their audience and become a dominant voice that would feed back into the other things they want to do." The best example of potential synergies, he said, is the new Fox Business News cable channel.

Wilson suggested that the Journal's online competitors—from the New York Times to TheStreet.com—let out a collective sigh of relief upon hearing Murdoch's decision not to go free.