I once heard somewhere that before Google+ became a social network, it was supposed to serve as a way for people to insert custom information into Google-search

I once heard somewhere that before Google+ became a social network, it was supposed to serve as a way for people to insert custom information into Google-searches about themselves. So, if you're for example someone famous, you could create a Google+-profile and put in your detailed information and then when people searched for your name, they'd see the information that you put in. No idea, if it's actually true, but it seems about right, especially also with the name and that Google replaced the plus-operator in Google searches to search through Google+.