Facebook Home was introduced with much fanfare one month ago. So far it has not lived up to the hype.

The app for Android smartphones has a two-star rating in the Google Play store. And the HTC First phone - the first to come preloaded with the Home software, which is available in the U.S. through AT&T - was recently slashed from $99 with a two-year contract to 99 cents.

Facebook previewed some upgrades to Facebook Home during a small gathering of journalists Thursday at the company's Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters. The upgrades were designed to address the chief complaint from users: that Facebook takes over the phone at the expense of every other app on it.

Facebook's director of mobile engineering, Cory Ondrejka, said about 1 million people downloaded Facebook Home, which represents Facebook's most ambitious bid yet for the hearts and minds of users on mobile devices. He would not say how many of those 1 million are actively using Home. But he did say that Home users are spending 25-percent more time on Facebook and are interacting with other users 25-percent more. Chat usage has bumped up 7 percent, and Home users send about 10-percent more messages.

He acknowledged that users have complained that Facebook Home makes their apps hard to find. So it plans to create folders of apps within the launcher. Facebook will also add a dock at the bottom of the home screen to give quick access to key apps such as email and maps.

Facebook's director of product, Adam Mosseri, said Chat Heads - little bubble pictures of friends - have proved popular but users have complained it's tough to initiate a conversation. He showed off a new feature that will let users more easily access a buddy list from Home.

No word yet on when Home will be available on more smartphones. Mosseri did discourage the practice of installing a hacked version of Home on unsupported Android smartphones. He estimated that more than 10,000 people had done that so far.