The mobile revolution is spawning a variety of business relationships to attract new customers. The latest is the partnership between credit card holder, American Express (AXP) and the social network Foursquare Labs Inc.

Both companies are capitalizing the growing segment of online purchasing. American Express had roughly $100 billion in online transactions last year. Online spending is growing at a 20% rate, compared to15% for overall spending, as reported in the Wall Street Journal.

For airlines, it always seems like a race to the bottom. And, with the low-cost structure of the internet, we are seeing some creativity with airline fares. The latest comes from Skybus Airlines.

The concept is that -- for each flight -- there will be at least 10 seats at $10 a piece. That sounds pretty good for the customer. But hasn't deep discounting been a big problem for the bottom line, or can Skybus be another JetBlue Airways (NASDAQ: JBLU) or Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV)?

Well, Skybus does have about $160 million in the bank (so there is some runway). There are some other tweaks: You can only purchase tickets from the company's website, and you'll probably be nickle-and-dimed on extras (like food, check-in of bags, and so on).

I had a chance to interview Rafi Mohammed, who is an expert on pricing. He runs a consulting firm, Culture of Profit, and is the author of the book The Art of Pricing. He says: "How do new airlines enter a market and give customers a value-based reason to try their service? It always starts with a discount. New airline entrant Skybus is offering discounts in a grand and intelligent style by guaranteeing that at least 10 seats per flight are offered for $10 (plus taxes). Not only have these $10 fares made a huge marketing splash, but they are designed to create loyalty to the Skybus website. Sure there's a good chance that the $10 seats will be sold out, but it definitely makes sense for a traveler to at least check availability when booking a trip to see if luck is on their side. And if that $10 fare is not available, they may stick around to book a $79 fare."

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.