What you meant: two owner's blocks, or an alternative of default?

One that is similar to the structurer of the original owner_block but with links that I populate it with and not elgg.

Just register plugin hook for it:

elgg_register_plugin_hook_handler('register', 'menu:owner_block', 'my_owner_block_menu');

Then add a menu item to the user/group ownerblock:

function my_owner_block_menu($hook, $type, $return, $params) {
    if (elgg_instanceof($params['entity'], 'user')) {
        $url = "your-url-here";
        $item = new ElggMenuItem('your-name', elgg_echo('your-name'), $url);
        $return[] = $item;
    }

    else {
            $url = "your-url-here-for-group";
           $item = new ElggMenuItem('your-name-for-group', elgg_echo('your-name-for-group'), $url);
            $return[] = $item;
    }

    return $return;
}

Read docs before

I have tried that one and all it did was crash the site but will give that another go and see what happens. Thanks @RvR you have been a big help with answering all my questions

Ok. It would require too much work. But there are already solutions separately...

• When a user posts a status update it will only be shown to private/friends/public only
• Remove the Logged in user option so that only people who are friends with the posting user can see the post if not set to public

//Thanks @Beck24 for this:

function activity_get_accesses($user) {
  if (!elgg_instanceof($user, 'user')) {
    return array(ACCESS_PUBLIC);
  }
 
  $access = get_access_array($user->getGUID());
 
  // remove private and editorz ids
  foreach (array(ACCESS_LOGGED_IN) as $id) {
    if (($key = array_search($id, $access)) !== false) {
      unset($access[$key]);
    }
  }
 
  return $access;
}

• Commenting on the post instead of being taken to the wire to make a reply

http://community.elgg.org/plugins/1464261/1.0/elggwire-new-concept

• Sharing of other users posts to your wire

http://community.elgg.org/plugins/1526775/1.3%20beta/share

• show an icon on each post that will show what the post has been set to friends/private/public

Hook it

• Refresh 5 minutes to see new activity

E.g.:

http://community.elgg.org/plugins/825625/2014.05.02/river-addon

http://community.elgg.org/plugins/1616843/1.8.2/river-auto-update

• being able to upload files, images, videos from the Activity page

Shoutout

• creating an unlike button to accompany the like button

http://community.elgg.org/plugins/842485/1.0/dislikes-18

• make the activity page act more like a facebook timeline

 http://community.elgg.org/plugins/1566883/1.8.15i/facebook-timeline-theme

Wow thanks for the great plugins. Now the one issue is I can not use the Facebook Timeline theme as that would not work with the current theme as they have overlapping items. 

But just so every one knows the following plugins have been used to replace the wire in total.

HypeWall, Unlike, Share, River_Auto_Update, River_Addon

Read about overriding views at http://docs.elgg.org/wiki/Engine/Views

What exactly are you doing in start.php that you think can be done in a view? If it's the registering of the menu items, then you can't do that by overriding a view. But you could take the Coldtrick plugins like Profile Manager as an example of how to organize your code. For example plugin hook callback functions are sourced out from start.php into lib/hooks.php, event callbacks into lib/events.php and other functions into lib/functions.php. You would load these libs in start.php and only register the events and plugin hook handlers in start.php but otherwise the size of your start.php would be much smaller.