Classified advertisements, both as a means of communication and as a social practice, made their appearance in European newspapers during the XVIIth century, giving way to the creation of more specialised periodicals in the early XVIIIth century. The Parisian Annonces, affiches et avis divers ou Journal général de France, founded in 1751 as part of the monarchy’s own media network, saw its greatest expansion from the 1770’s onwards. Whilst its contents were almost exclusively provided by a public of “enlightened consumers”, orality and personal ties continued to play a crucial role within a multifold space of communication. The paper introduced a genuinely new organisation of (urban) communication by following and structuring social and economic interactions between individuals which were for the most part situated outside the privileged economy. After a formal analysis of what can be seen as the infra-ordinary narrative of urban life, follows a discussion of some of the specific ways of communicating initiated by the journal, concluding with an assessment of the social effects of these new média through the example of the labour market.