Well it's somewhat annoying having to add members on facebook in order to ask them for alliance, especially if they had custom nicknames, then itmwould be impossible.
Adding allies should be in-game, in each member's profile. It would be less cumbersome this way, and we could get more allies easily, of course after the consent of the player.
I hope you include this change as soon as possible, before the end of summer anyways :P