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Web server

The ESP8266 chip is powerful enough to host itself as a very basic web server.

There is very little to add on to the excellent example sketches that are already provided by the Arduino ESP8266 project, but I will describe a bit of each example that's relevant to us.

If you are in the BORB studio, you should stick to using MQTT to build your prototypes. Running a webserver on a mote is more involved and not necessary (unless you absolutely have to serve data out from your mote directly).

Remember to set up the WiFi credentials accordingly.

The web server examples can be found under File > Examples > ESP8266WebServer:

HelloServer
Start here – a basic web server that you point a browser or curl to, and you'll get a simple “Hello, World” response. Oddly satisfying. This also introduces the possibility of setting up a DNS local name instead of relying on an IP address. Be sure to use a unique domain name if you're testing multiple mote minis on the WiFi network!
AdvancedWebServer
A fancier adaptation of the HelloServer by incorporating HTML SVG output to chart some random values in realtime. This can be easily modified to publish sensor readings, for example, and demonstrates that it is possible to write out HTML from the mote (although one will need to monitor the limited program memory and flash space).
FSBrowser
Shows us how to use the SPIFFS for managing uploaded files. This instructable offers a good primer to partitioning the flash memory on the ESP8266 / mote.