Methods and systems for generating and providing program guides and content

A computer-implemented method, the method comprising:

• maintaining a data store of user information, the user information comprising explicitly provided user preferences and:
• user viewing history,
• user navigation history, and/or
• user bookmarks;
• inferring one or more user preferences using at least a portion of the user information;
• generating a program guide of a first plurality of channels of video programs;
• detecting a user activation of a channel scan control;
• determining a first set of channels to be included in a channel scan, and generating a channel scan ordering for the channel scan based at least in part on:
• the explicitly provided user preferences;
• and
• the inferred user preferences;
• in response to detecting the user activation of the channel scan control:
• causing a terminal associated with the user to scan through at least a portion of the first set of channels based at least in part on the generated scan channel ordering by at least:
• causing streaming of an item of content of a first scanned-to channel to the user terminal for a first period of time and automatically causing streaming of an item of content of a next scanned-to channel to the user terminal.

A computer system comprising:

• a network interface;
• one or more processing devices;
• non-transitory machine readable media that stores executable instructions, which, when executed by the one or more processing devices, are configured to cause the one or more processing devices to:
• maintain a data store of user information, the user information comprising explicitly provided user preferences and:
• user viewing history,
• user navigation history, and/or
• user bookmarks;
• infer one or more user preferences using at least a portion of the user information;
• access an identification of a first plurality of video channels;
• detect a user activation of a channel scan control;
• determine a first set of channels to be included in a channel scan, and
• generate a channel scan ordering for the channel scan based at least in part on:
• the explicitly provided user preferences and/or
• the inferred user preferences;
• in response to detecting the user activation of the channel scan control:
• cause a terminal associated with the user to scan through at least a portion of the first set of channels based at least in part on the generated scan channel ordering, including:
• cause streaming of an item of content of a first scanned-to channel to the user terminal for a first period of time and automatically cause subsequent streaming of an item of content of a next scanned-to channel to the user terminal.