Google Wave is still in its early stages, with most of us learning as we go.  I don’t know about you, but it seems that every day I stumble upon an easier way of doing something in Wave.  There are some outstanding Wave resources out there, such as The Complete Guide to Google Wave by Gina Trapani with Adam Pash, and Mashable’s HOW TO: Get Started with Google Wave.  But sometimes you just want some basic tips to get you started.  A few weeks ago, we wrote about How to Organize the Google Wave Sidebar With Tags.  In that spirit, here are 5 more entry-level tips for Google Wave.

1. Make a wave public

Wave doesn’t have an easy "make this wave public" button when you create a wave.  One flawed way to make a wave public is to add public@a.gwave.com to your Wave contacts, and then select that contact when making a new wave. The problem is that public@a.gwave.com will disappear from your contact list when you exit Wave. Fortunately, there is a bot that will make waves public. Add easypublic@appspot.com to your Contacts, and then add that contact to any wave that you want to make public.

2. Link to a wave

What if you want to send someone a link to a wave, outside of Wave?  Perhaps you want to post a link on your web site (such as what we did with the 40Tech Public Wave), or perhaps you want to send a wave link via email.  To do this, simply drag the wave into a new, temporary wave.  In the temporary wave, a clickable link will appear. Right click, and copy the link properties, and paste those properties wherever you want the link to appear.

3. Jump to the first new comment in a wave

If you want to jump to the first new comment in a wave, click on the little green number that shows how many new notifications there are.

4. Jump from one new blip to the next

Once you’re at a  blip (Wave’s term for a comment within an individual wave), you may want to cycle through all new blips.  Do this by tapping on the space bar on your keyboard, which will take you from one new blip to the next new blip, even if it takes you to a different wave.

5. Reply in the middle of a comment

What if you’re working collaboratively with someone, and want to reply in the middle of that person’s blip?  Double-click on a word in the middle of the blip, and you will see an option to "reply" or "edit." Click the reply link that appears, start typing, and your blip will now appear after the word you clicked, with the original blip being split at that point.   To hide your "interrupting" blip, click the bubble to rejoin the original blip.

Have you been using Wave?  Do you have any tips for new users?  Share them in the comments, and also jump into the the 40Tech Public Wave.