My Rating.

After 30 online games played I am rated 1394.  I am a casual player at best, so this number doesn't really surprise me.  The thing I find unusual is that this puts me in the 74th percentile for people playing online chess at chess.com.  I would think it would be lower.  In over the board ratings 1394 would be a more than a novice, but not that much more.  How does this put me nearly in the top quarter of players here?  It seems very strange.

A chess.com rating and an OTB one have nothing in common. It is the same as comparing your rating for skipping stones over water to your rating for climbing trees.

For misinformation see here.  http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/chess-rating-inflation-competition

Note:  Inflation occurs in a single pool of players and cannot be used when referring to another pool of players.

Account for the large number of people who play a small number of games and time-out without returning. The average rating is 1340, so you're a decent chunk above average.

Yeah, ratings are really inflated here. I make many tactical mistakes and positional errors and my rating here is 1741. Whereas in ICC, in the standard game type, I'm in the low 1400s.

Your rating is inflated if it has risen within the pool while your skill has not. It is better used in terms of all players' ratings having increased over a period of time while their skill did not increase.