Eight startup companies from around the world are in Syracuse working to get their ventures off the ground. They were chosen from more than 300 companies to be a part of the first StartFast Venture Accelerator Program in Central New York. This week, our Katie Gibas introduces us to a couple of sports enthusiast entrepreneurs who are combining their passion for athletics with their passion for advertising.

  To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Jordan Lester and Michael Triche played sports together in high school at Jamesville DeWitt. They both went on to play college athletics. But they say when they would go on the internet and see pictures of their sports' role models, there was something missing.

"With the LeBron James example, if I see a picture of him, I want to know who's sponsoring him. I want to know what he's wearing. I want to know where he got those jeans from, where he got those shoes from, where can I get a Miami Heat Jersey. When is the next game going to be on," said Michael Triche, the Streamspec CTO & Co-founder.

That's how the idea for their company Streamspec.com was born. They are able to allow users to scroll over a picture and find out more information relevant to the photo.

"We're transforming the static image on a webpage to an interactive and engaging experience for web users," said Jordan Lester, the Streamspec CEO and co-founder.

Triche added, "Once they hover over the image, they'll see the ad. They can interact with it. They can click on it to go to the page or they can see and watch the video that pops up. Or they can scroll off and not see it again."

Lester and Triche say it's also an improved form of advertising.

"Nobody basically looks at the ads on the top and side of the page. So what if we could make ads more relevant to the user by linking them to images because everybody sees an image on a webpage. And we're also allowing websites to monetize the static images on their webpages," said Lester.

With billions of images online, Triche and Lester say the possibilities are endless.

For more information, visit streamspec.com.