I walked into the TechCrunch party Wednesday night at Consolidated Works wondering how it might compare to the Loudeye IPO party six years ago -- an extravagant affair that in my mind marked the peak of the dot com euphoria in Seattle's tech industry.

It's probably a good sign that this "Web 2.0" party -- sponsored by Redfin, Farecast and TripHub -- didn't have the feeling of excess or arrogance that was on full display in 2000. Instead of fancy appetizers, white pizza boxes sat on folded tables. Instead of martinis and cosmopolitans, guests sipped on keg beer. Instead of performance artists entertaining the crowd, people talked and looked at demos of new Internet services.

The entire vibe was low-budget and grass roots, the way some argue it should be.

I bumped into a lot of people who made references to the past Internet boom. Folks like Shiv Chandrasekaran of Peppers and Pollywogs who said the get together was great, but then added: "It kind of scares me a little bit because I have been through 1999 and 2000."

Madrona Venture Group's Greg Gottesman -- who showed up in a snazzy sports coat -- echoed those sentiments by saying that he hoped the party signaled the beginning of the good times and not the end. Geir Hansen of Silicon Valley Bank referred to the past as well, but he said that people are now "wiser" and today's Internet companies have "more legs."

There was certainly a lot of enthusiasm -- and heat -- surging through the room as several hundred people gathered to discuss new technologies and other topics.

I spent most of the evening getting the scoop on new companies and entrepreneurs, but I also ran into familiar faces such as Newsvine's Mike Davidson, Zillow.com's Amy Bohutinsky and Rustic Canyon Partner's Jon Staenberg. Here's a little more on what I discovered:

Rumors had circulated that Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen might attend, partly because someone registered under that name and Allen's investment firm just led an $8 million financing round in Redfin. But those rumors were quickly put to rest by Vulcan Capital's Steve Hall, who told me the billionaire was out of town. Hall said that Vulcan -- Allen's investment arm -- has become more serious about early stage investing and that the firm is currently incubating a few projects. Hall's goal for the night: find developers to work on a new software project, details of which were not disclosed.

Shortly after that discussion, I ran into Dan Carpenter of Colliers International who was on the prowl for potential tenants. His take on the real estate climate and technology firms: "It is a hot market."

There were plenty of random -- and interesting -- companies in attendance. For example, I didn't expect to find an online video startup from Winthrop -- the remote mountain town located in the Methow Valley. But HomeMovie.com founder Lars Krumme made the four hour trip over the mountains to drum up interest in the 7-year-old company, which describes itself as "video sharing for grown-ups." President Steve Smallman said he wanted to attend "to get our name out" and possibly attract interest from investors.

Barry Kaplan, the chief technology officer and "chief craftsman" at Seattle-based Groupee, also had an interesting story to tell. He described how the 10-year-old company is different than other online communities such as MySpace and Wallop. Groupee has "a more organic way to build communities" and help people share information with friends. "We don't subscribe to the whole Web 2.0 idea because we were doing community before a lot of people were talking about it," he said.

Former Microsoftie Stephen Lacey, co-founder of SwitchGear Software, still wasn't saying much about his stealthy online storage startup. But he did say the party was a good way "to get the geeks away from the keyboards a little bit."

Overall, Redfin Director of Marketing Eric Heller said he was satisfied with the event, noting that more than 500 name tags and 80 pizza boxes were gone by 10 p.m. "For something that was started last Friday, it went better than I expected," he said.

I finished the night discussing the news business with TechCrunch publisher Michael Arrington, who on his way out the door at 11 p.m. was still getting the scoop on a new Seattle online music startup. Stay tuned to Arrington's blog to see who that might be.

UPDATE: Here's Arrington's overview of the event, which includes plenty of photos of attendees. Also, stay tuned for an upcoming Q&A that I am putting together with Arrington.